The Tao Of War

Preface

Since the Tao of War takes Wang Chen’s commentary as its focus and many readers are already familiar with one of the readily available Tao Te Ching translations, we did not intend to append our own version of this famous classic. However, studying Wang’s thoughts in detail convinced us that his understanding of the Tao Te Ching necessitates a contextually modified translation to prevent considerable puzzlement about his exact meaning. We therefore decided to commence each chapter with the relevant verses rendered in accord with his vision and orientation, as well as his particularized pronouncements.

In many instances the resulting translation differs somewhat from our basic inclinations. (Being a laconic and often enigmatic text, unless compelled to struggle with variant textual understandings and even mutually exclusive possibilities, one tends to read nebulously and unconsciously, somehow simultaneously absorbing the many implied and alternative meanings. However, definitive choices must be made in order to render problematic passages into English, thereby accounting for the significant variations in wording and style seen among contemporary versions.) Not only does Wang Chen sometimes choose unusual textual variants, but he occasionally diverges dramatically from one or another “accepted” understanding. At times his choices seem consciously intended to conform, if not contort, the text to his purposes and vision, but in fact many of them enjoy support from one or another antique commentary, as well as certain tomb text rearrangements. On reflection we found no instances in which his perspectives and interpretations were precluded.

Translations of the Tao Te Ching abound which might be consulted in conjunction with The Tao of War. The classic versions (with their accompanying introductions) by Arthur Waley (The Way And Its Power) and Wing-tsit Chan (The Way of Lao-tzu) still hold great appeal. Wing-tsit Chan also includes incisive textual notes and some brief commentaries, all of which were expanded upon in Ellen M. Chen’s focused version, The Tao Te Ching: A New Translation with Commentary. John Wu’s Tao Te Ching is marked by a more political tone, one much closer to Wang Chen’s understanding. However, several relatively recent renditions also merit pondering, including D.C. Lau’s hybrid Tao Te Ching, Robert G. Henrick’s Lao-tzu Te-Tao Ching, Victor Mair’s Tao Te Ching, and Stephen Mitchell’s Tao Te Ching. Comprehensive studies continue to appear, such as Michael LaFargue, The Tao of the Tao Te Ching, and Livia Kohn and Michael La- Fargue, Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching; the discovery of Han dynasty tomb texts has stimulated numerous conferences and a much revised view of the text’s historical evolution; and the pioneering work of Bruce and Taeko Brooks compels radical reinterpretation.

Wang Chen’s text may be found in the great compilation of Taoist writings known as the Tao Tsang, the major collected editions, and even the recently published Chung-kuo Ping-shu Chi-ch’eng. Textual variations among the accessible editions are surprisingly few, easily emended wherever obviously corrupt or erroneous. (Although we have assiduously researched the text and pondered the translation and commentaries for some two years, the final work, being intended for readers with diverse interests and orientations rather than solely sinologists, has been spared the usual philological footnotes.) While it is uncertain which Tao Te Ching edition Wang Chen primarily employed — he clearly chose among variants in a number of cases — his comments suggest he was aware of Wang Pi’s version but normally gave preference to Ho-shang Kung’s. From his line by line notes, chapter arrangement, and chapter titles, he doubtlessly collated his comments to an eighty-one chapter version similar to the many presently available.

Thanks are due to Lee T’ing-rong for honoring the work with his calligraphy; to Max Gartenberg for his wise counsel over the years; and to our Saint Bernard, Zeno, for illuminating certain aspects of the Tao Te Ching.

Introduction

WANG CHEN AND HIS TIME

Stirred by the many sorrows warfare had inflicted upon China over the preceding two thousand years, the T’ang dynasty border commander Wang Chen pensively observed:

His words, universal in their depiction, could well have been written in any postwar period, in any age or country, East or West, including this very day.

Perturbed by the carnage that had again plagued even the glorious T’ang dynasty in the preceding eighth century, Wang Chen sought a solution that would end warfare and eliminate the horrendous destruction it wrought. Although ostensibly a Confucian, he found the means to rectify humanity’s self-destructive tendencies in the doctrines of the Tao Te Ching, a brief, already ancient philosophical work that had, at least in part, provided the initial intellectual inspiration for what evolved into the various forms of Taoism over the centuries from the late Warring States period (403–221 BCE) onward. The choice must be considered astonishing, not only because there were well-established, alternative possibilities—Confucianism and Buddhism—with strongly grounded theories of human nature and conflict, but also because prevailing interpretations of the Tao Te Ching had come to emphasize its mystical and even nihilistic aspects. However, the text must have appealed to Wang Chen because it provided a cosmological anchor for the patterns of human society and a transcendent explanation for the psychodynamics of conflict and contention, whose eradication had to be thorough to prove successful.

In the quest for a method to end warfare and coerce peace amid a world of selfish interests and conflicting desires, Wang Chen’s treatise constitutes a striking, worldly meditation upon the patterns and principles of the Tao Te Ching. It therefore also offers a highly nontraditional interpretation of the text itself (although growing evidence shows that at least some schools of thought understood the Tao Te Ching as a political, rather than purely individualist, writing). Wang clearly inclined to true pacifism but found its solution of deference and humility, of simply refusing to engage in combat and warfare, inadequate when confronted by great evil, by the extinction of one’s family and the extermination of the state. He read the Tao Te Ching closely for solutions and thoroughly embraced its concepts and ideas, but not without probing them within the context of a bureaucratized world of competing views and incessant bickering. Obviously struggling with the contradictions found within life and the Tao Te Ching itself, his commentaries sometimes vacillate between pure noncontention and a modified position of deference through power, as well as undertaking inactivity or actionless measures that participate in cosmic patterns and therefore entail no repercussions.

Little being known about the author of the extensive Tao Te Ching commentaries that comprise Essential Explanations of the Tao Te Ching’s Martial Discussions, herein titled the Tao of War, context must be sought in the wider history of the T’ang dynasty. From the date of 809 CE appended to his overview, it can be concluded that Wang Chen lived in the second half of the T’ang dynasty, an era when its initial glory had already declined under weak emperors who often immersed themselves in Taoist studies rather than exercise control of the government. Moreover, the empire had sustained an enormous blow from An Lu-shan’s violent rebellion, which had virtually torn the state asunder and caused the death of millions over nearly a decade, commencing in 755 CE. Although central government control had been restored by the time of Wang’s writing a half century later, unrest still continued even then: in more remote areas, recalcitrant military leaders retained substantially independent power, and in the border region, various steppe peoples, termed “barbarians” by the imperial government (in comparison with China’s vaunted civilization and culture), constantly posed threats and mounted incursions. Wang Chen’s own words show he personally witnessed the turmoil and travail in these remote areas, having been posted there in a subordinate military capacity during his career as a central government bureaucrat.

By the T’ang dynasty, whose founders have traditionally been viewed as semibarbarians themselves, essentially Confucian views had come to characterize state orthodoxy. Actual administrative practice, however, was a complex matter: imperial attitudes and policies fluctuated between activist intervention marked by caustic “realist” or “Legalist” practices and deliberate Taoist quietism, whose inactivity verged on a power vacuum. Although other avenues were available, Wang Chen would presumably have pursued his career as a bureaucrat by passing at least one or two government examinations and gradually being advanced through a series of general posts, coming at some point to be appointed an imperial censor (or inspector) charged with scrutinizing behavior in a designated provincial area. In this capacity, he was eventually assigned command responsibilities, suggesting he either had some background in military studies or subsequently came to know the military writings in the course of his duties. However, since his commentaries rarely quote the military classics but do cite passages from the Confucian canon, he may well have been entrusted with command without any martial expertise. This could account for his lack of interest in the Tao Te Ching’s intriguing tactical concepts and unorthodox military principles.

His years of service on the border just when the central government was once again building strong armies and wresting back full control of the peripheral regions apparently impressed Wang Chen with the horrors of warfare firsthand. Certainly this experience was far more intense than any he was likely to have experienced in his childhood years, when he may have encountered remnants of the general suffering resulting from An Lu-shan’s rebellion. Apparently these sorrows prompted him to envision a realistic program for reducing conflict and ending warfare in the Tao Te Ching, whose text was much favored by the avowedly Taoist T’ang dynasty. This provided Wang with a ready, acceptable justification for his ideas, as did the fact that the T’ang dynasty had also established China’s first semilegendary strategist, the T’ai Kung of early Chou fame, as its revered, state-sanctioned martial patron, in conjunction with Confucius as its cultural patron. His afterword, here somewhat abridged by deleting much honorific language of little interest, briefly discusses his motives and rationale:

ASSUMPTIONS AND CONTRADICTIONS

In the traditional form already defined by the T’ang dynasty, the Tao Te Ching consisted of two parts, whose very titles reflect their thematic focus; the thirty-seven chapters of the Tao Ching, or Classic of the Tao, and the remaining forty-four of the Te Ching, or Classic of Te. The Tao Ching tends to ponder issues from a cosmological and metaphysical perspective, anchoring its observations and implications for humanity in the Tao’s ineffable pervasiveness throughout the phenomenal universe. The Te Ching, in contrast, is more oriented to questions and practices of government, emphasizing modes of action within the mundane realm, resolving the problems besetting society. The recent discovery of tomb texts with the traditional order reversed and minor variations in the wording and arrangement of some verses, as well as variant editions compiled by different commentators that have come down through the years, provides evidence that the Tao Te Ching’s basic format and contents were finalized by the Han dynasty. The tomb texts are inherently interesting and apparently suggest that the Tao Te Ching was originally conceived, at least by some interpretive schools, as a political text rather than the Taoist voyage of self-cultivation and metaphysical discovery it has long been considered. For our purposes, however, the book’s interpretation is defined by Wang Chen’s version, structured and informed solely by his understanding.

Scholarly opinion on the nature of the Tao Te Ching, its compilation process, and its probable composition date— presumably the fourth to third centuries BCE, during the Warring States period—differs significantly and vociferously. Despite its traditional attribution to the legendary Lao-tzu, who at best may have provided inspiration and some core material, it does not seem to stem from a single mind. Instead, it appears to be a much reworked and synthesized contemplation of various threads and contributions from several authors that achieves a defined but not entirely homogeneous perspective. Although several distinct voices are melded and incorporated into the Tao Te Ching, those voices are not totally integrated, with some remaining dramatically contradictory. Whether the resulting conceptual conflicts can be resolved by some greater vision or subsumed in some surpassing transpersonal power, concept, or entity that perhaps pervades the universe depends upon one’s assumptions and perspective. Even Wang Chen, who undertakes a consistent, envisioned reading of the text, at times seems to simply ignore or obscure difficulties. In most cases, though, his enthusiasm allows a cogent interpretation advocating the actionless course of virtue that leads to his ultimate objective of eliminating conflict. In addition, many difficulties easily dissolve in a maze of “chain arguments” whereby the reader is enticed through a sequence of conditions, each of which is presented as a highly plausible, if not necessary, consequence of the preceding situation. Since movement from premise to apparent conclusion is normally bereft of delimiting conditions and constraints, in an extreme case black can even be convincingly transformed into white. Moreover, the Tao Te Ching’s particularistic nature tends to elicit focused comments defined solely by each chapter’s unique concerns, with little or no reference to the greater text. Discrete but divergent views may therefore be enthusiastically espoused by the Tao Te Ching and promoted by Wang Chen without ever being perceived or pondered as contradictory.

Even though he often comments upon fundamentally metaphysical issues, for Wang Chen the Tao Te Ching is not an ethereal, nihilistic, contemplative work. Rather, it is an exposition of the Tao’s universal forces that provides a guide to resolving the horrendous problems plaguing humanity: greed, desire, militarism, and especially warfare. Moreover, he does not view it as a work intended for the weak and powerless or for recluses fearful of sullying themselves with the world’s affairs. He clearly regards it as being for rulers (honored with the rubric of “Sages”) acting from a position of power whose fundamental concerns include the people’s welfare and loss of their own positions. (As will be seen, humility and pliancy prove ideal redresses for power but simply doom the inherently weak to extinction.) For example, key verses of the chapter entitled “Know the Masculine” obviously speak to individuals in positions of ultimate temporal power: